Blog – a work in progess

Stan Kroenke, who owns two thirds of Arsenal, this week launched a controversial TV channel dedicated to blood sports and killing endangered species, then backed down after protests. From the vicious, corporate mafiosi to the virtuous local lads, Andy Martin dishes the dirt on the rest of the clubs’ owners ANDY MARTIN @andymartinink Friday 4 August 2017 21:00 BST My heart went straight through my boots. I had made the fatal mistake of premature consultation of the Premier League table. Have a look, if you will. West Ham United (my team) are right at the bottom, propping up everyone else like Atlas, and squarely in line for relegation. Arsenal are top, ahead of Bournemouth and Brighton. Leicester and Liverpool are …

Agatha Christie enjoyed taking us on a nostalgic trip down a middle-class memory lane, back to a Golden Age of orthodoxy, conformism and shockability. Is that why we love the crime writer, asks Andy Martin ANDY MARTIN @andymartinink Friday 28 July 2017 23:50 BST A man gets into an elevator on the 20th floor. It has to be “elevator” because this is the Chrysler Building in Manhattan. He is smartly turned out, in a suit and tie. His name is Alex. His loyal but overworked PA, Janice, comes running up and passes him his briefcase (Alex is a forgetful fellow) just before the doors close. He puts his hat on. You, meanwhile, are waiting for the elevator on the ground …

The new Phantom will set you back half a million pounds. But Müller-Ötvös says for many of his clients that still leaves spare change for a second Rolls-Royce ANDY MARTIN @andymartinink Thursday 3 August 2017 23:00 BST His Mum and Dad are “quite proud” of their son, he said. And so they should be, since Torsten Müller-Ötvös is chief executive officer of Rolls-Royce and guiding spirit behind the new Phantom. I met him in a conference room at auction house Bonhams on New Bond Street looking down on a majestic array of historic Phantoms (including ones that belonged to John Lennon, Field Marshal Montgomery, Malcolm Campbell, Fred Astaire and the Queen) in the exhibition room below us. The young Müller-Ötvös …

The crime novel wanders the mean streets with its mirror and lets you know what is going on in the violent world beyond the kitchen sink. In the new season of thrillers, Andy Martin realises that the best fiction definitely comes from the worst of times ANDY MARTIN @andymartinink Friday 21 July 2017 22:18 BST There was once a cartoon in the New Yorker which featured a 19th-century editor, very Victorian, with long sideburns, and poring over a manuscript on his desk, giving a hard time to a young wannabe writer. “Come, come, Mr Dickens,” he is saying, “it can’t be both the “best of times” and the “worst of times”, can it now? Make your mind up!” It occurred …

Sexual addiction: Is there really such a thing? High-profile celebrities have come out as being ‘addicted to sex’, but is there really such a thing – or is it simply a good excuse for bad behaviour? Andy Martin investigates Read the Article >>

One night in Brooklyn: how US philosophers are processing truth and reality in the age of Trump On a visit to New York, Andy Martin finds febrile philosophising reminiscent of Paris in ’68, as intellectuals try to process Trumpian reality. Is a war brewing in America between the contemplatives and the contemptible? Read the Article >>

The very ‘special relationship’: A British-American pact for end-of-life care Englishman Andy Martin has a special American friend, Sam – a bear hunter who lives out in the woods. The two have a ‘health insurance plan’ that perhaps Trump and May will approve of. It’s called Montana-care, and when their time is done Andy and Sam will venture out into the wilderness – and blow each other’s brains out Read the Article >>

America has been voting for a head of state but what it got was a head of hair. Andy Martin deconstructs the presidential hairdo and discovers you can see right through it. His hair doesn’t care about truth, it’s all about form and style, an airy helmet doomed to collapse. Read the full article >>

You drop your favourite vase. The vase is not broken. It has been restored to its pre-vase state. So nothing is lost. West Ham crash out of the FA Cup. Trump is elected President… What is disappointment and how should we deal with it? Andy Martin considers, through its history and philosophy, how we can live with or overcome this difficult emotion Read the full article here >>